10 Songs to Teach Past Simple and Past Continuous Tense
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Friedrich Nietzsche
All these songs can be used as a simple gap fill activity, but they can also work as models for writing similar songs with the same grammar pattern, or as a way to talk about stories and the past in general.
Here is my playlist, and just below it, you will find the readers’ playlist, made up of suggestions shared in the comments over the years.
These songs are here to help us create fun lessons, change the pace of a class, and bring some beautiful old songs from the 70s, 80s and 90s into the classroom.
Songs to teach Past Simple and past Continuous
My Playlist
When I prepare the lessons, I’ll also add them.
Because you Loved me Celine Dion
Jealous Guy John Lennon
Hotel California The Eagles
Storyman Chris de Burgh
Fairy Tale Alexander Rybak
Seasons in the Sun Terry Jacks
Our Last Summer ABBA
No reply Beatles
Candle in the Wind Elton John
You were there Eric Clapton
Readers’ Playlist
I Am Sailing – Rod Stewart
Lemon Tree – Fool’s Garden
Driving to Damascus – Big Country
Call Me Maybe – Carly Rae Jepsen
Would you like to add more to the readers’ playlist? And if you try one of these songs in your class, why not share how it went?
Bonus Tracks
- From Vicky Loras’s Blog by Vicky Loras The Day Coldplay Came to Our Classroom
- From mELTing Activities by Carissa Peck Opinion Paragraph with Lyrics
And if you love using songs in your lessons, you can visit the blog for updates.
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i relly like to work with songs in the class!!!
Beautiful songs. Very useful in fact. Thanks a lot
Thanks! I didn´t remeber the lyrics of these songs.
I don’t remeber them either. Neither do I remember them.
Thank you very much.
Thanks. Just been through them all and Jealous Guy definitely seems to be the best for Past Continuous. Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen also has some Past Continuous in it.
Thanks
I am sailing- Rod Stewart.
Another yellow lemon tree- Fool’s garden. ( With 1st person singular contration).
These songs are already old and my students don’t think they are “relatable”. I wish you could give us new songs.
The problem is, most new songs have many grammar mistakes, whether done intentionally or unintentionally (though i think it is the former)… i was referring to the song ‘I am mess’ for example. fun song but atrocious grammar…
My PET students really loved listening to Driving to Damascus by Big Country. A slightly obscure one but it does have both past simple and past continuous in it…
Thanks a lot. I’ll try it.